What is Coaching

What is the difference between coaching, counseling and mentoring?

Coaching

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Coaching offers a safe, non-judgmental, environment of structure, accountability, inspiration, feedback, support, and partnership to help individuals identify and clarify priorities and direction for growth and self-improvement, not for those currently experiencing serious mental distress. Coaching sessions are collaborative, with a focus on positive psychology, and are designed to help the clients increase their potential through identification and application of strengths and self-learning for movement forward. It is future-focused, capturing what the client is already doing well and applying those identified strategies towards improvements in other areas of the client’s choosing.

Though coaching offers a safe place to go deeper into what the client is capable of achieving, it is not counseling/therapy, which deals with healing past-traumas, nor are diagnoses made by the coach. Neither is coaching the same as mentoring, where the mentor is the expert offering advice and behavior modeling. Coaches are specially trained to facilitate conversations that help evoke creative solutions for those ready to explore and make changes that will improve some element of their life. If an individual being coached needs a mentor or therapist, the coach will identify those needs and referrals will be made as appropriate.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity, and leadership.”

Coaching’s Focus: Future-focused self-improvement and behavior change

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How Does Counseling/Therapy Differ from Coaching?

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Therapy offers a safe, non-judgmental, environment, but is geared more for those dealing with current mental health conditions, distress, or dysfunctional thinking patterns. It focuses on the impact that cognitive and psychological processes have on wellbeing, often exploring past trauma, with a focus on addressing and healing the illness or dysfunction, and the therapist can offer clinical diagnoses as well (using the DSM-5). In counseling, the therapist is considered the authority, offering advice, guidance, and dictating the direction of the sessions, so sessions are not co-created in the same way they are with coaching.

Counseling’s Focus: Past-focused for healing and correction of dysfunction

How Does Mentoring Differ From Coaching?

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Mentoring is strongly based on informal relationship, but the mentor is acting as the expert who models behavior, provides advice, and guides the individual who is learning from them. There is typically not a focus on measuring growth and the goal of mentoring is pre-determined based on what the mentor is offering.

Mentoring’s Focus: Informal guidance and modeling from someone more experienced

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